The traditional process of baking includes mixing of ingredients, kneading of dough, dividing the dough into smaller portions, shaping and molding of dough pieces, proofing it to a particular volume, and baking. This process is cumbersome, time-consuming, and requires appropriate equipments and qualified bakers for manufacturing bread of organoleptic characteristics that are typical of freshly-baked bread. In order to minimize time and problems related to bread-baking, fully or par-baked breads were introduced. However, such products lack the characteristics of freshly-baked bread. In order to minimize preparation time and still provide freshly-baked bread, frozen doughs gained popularity in food-service, in-store bakeries, as well as home-baking.
Based on the method of production, frozen doughs are available in different forms, viz. pre-proofed or un-proofed frozen dough with or without the use of chemical leavening agents. A pre-proofed frozen dough system includes proofing of dough before it is frozen (U.S. Pat. No. 6,660,311). Such products are susceptible to damage during shipping and handling, and hence are lesser popular as compared to their un-proofed counterparts. In the un-proofed frozen dough system, the dough is separated into dough pieces and then frozen. The obtained frozen dough has a longer shelf life (˜100 days or more at 0-5° F.), and is shipped in its frozen state to the food-service and in-store bakeries.
In a typical baking operation that utilizes frozen dough products, the frozen products are placed in a retarder or refrigerator (˜4 to 6° C.) for two to sixteen hours for thawing, and then for an additional one to two hours for proofing, followed by baking. This can be wasteful, because the bakeries have to presume the amount of product they might need for sale at least 3 hours before baking. In addition, qualified bakers are still needed to identify the time at which proofing should be stopped and baking should be commenced. Essentially, in order to use frozen dough products, a bakery operation would need to invest in equipments (such as Freezer, Retarder, Proofer, and oven), and still have a qualified baker on the floor. Ironically, frozen dough systems are an expensive proposition as compared to the bread making that includes mixing of ingredients, and kneading of dough; but still an attractive proposition because of its convenience and cleanliness.
Hence, to address the issues of reducing cost of baking bread to customers and still providing frozen dough products with their freshly-baked quality, frozen dough manufacturers have been trying to develop a product that can preferably be transferred directly from the freezer to the oven. Certain approaches to obtain such freezer-to-oven products include use of lamination and/or chemical leavening systems (U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,579,554; 6,589,583). While lamination and chemical leaveners provide acceptable croissant or cookie-type products, they do not provide a bread-like product with flavor and crumb structure that is typical of bread. Another approach for reducing the cost of baking is by reducing time at each step or elimination of a step in the process when a frozen product is thawed in a retarder, proofed in a proofer, and then baked in an oven. In one frozen dough system, the frozen dough does not require a conventional proofing (or proofer) step prior to baking. The frozen dough is thawed in a retarder at 33 to 42° F. for at least 12 hours, or at an elevated temperature of 43 to 85° F. for at least 1 hour, and then baked to give a product with good organoleptic quality and a specific volume of at least 4 cc/g (US 2005/0202126). While research so-far has been conducted to recognize the essential compositional attributes that are desired for freezer-to-oven bread or bread-like products (U.S. Pat. No. 6,884,443), the processing and exact ingredient balance in the formulation to produce such products is not known so far.
Davis (1973) patented a method for preparing storage-stable bakery products within hermetically sealed containers that were capable of being cooked in the sealed container (U.S. Pat. No. 3,718,483). Application JP 2000-287607 describes a method for preparation of frozen dough where fermentation was carried out in a low vacuum state, and dough was further kneaded under pressure. The final product was less susceptible to generation of a “pear-like” skin, and improved the texture of the bread. U.S. Pat. No. 6,025,001 describes a process in which pre-shaped, unfrozen dough was expanded in size and baked under reduced pressure. Because of the said processes of thawing and proofing of frozen dough at reduced pressure, the overall time of bread baking at the bakery is not reduced, and the product cannot be considered a freezer-to-oven product.